 South African first class side Cobras will face the Australian side Victorian Bushrangers at Bangalore in the second game of the League B games. Victoria,
who had come into this game with two points carried over from the previous round
beat Bangalore in their first game of the second round, whereas Cobras, who also
have two points from the previous game will be playing their first game of the
second round.
Click for Live Score Card of Cape Cobras vs Victorian Bushrangers
In essence, if Victoria win the game, they will be the first side to be definitely
through to the second round, having won all their games and also carried two
points forward. That would mean that Cape Cobras will need to win their
last game against Delhi to go through to the semi-finals, irrespective of the
Bangalore-Delhi result.
Victoria has shown that they are a side with a lot of gumption and an ability
to adjust to the situation. This was evident in the game against Bangalore,
as they played some quality cricket on a pitch which was totally contrasting
to the one that they had encountered in the first round at Delhi. And yet, the
win was as comfortable.
Their batting revolves around the trio of Brad Hodge, David Hussey and
Cameron White, all three of whom are T20 batsmen par excellence. The
batting also has a back-up of players like Rob Quiney - who had starred
in their first game - and Blizzard and the likes. With such a batting line-up,
it is difficult to see how the Cobras bowlers will be able to penetrate the
line-up apart from scoring a huge total batting first and putting the pressure
on to the batsmen.
Cobras will know that while the opposition bowling is decent, it is not good
enough to take on a sustained pressure, and that is where they will look to
score. It will be interesting to see how the likes of Peter Siddle and
Moises Henriques adjust to the wickets at Bangalore after being really good
at the Kotla.
For the Cobras, they have already had two players carry their bat in the two
games they have played. J.P.Duminy batted through the innings for an unbeaten
99, whereas captain Andrew Puttick smashed an unbeaten century to see
his team through to a win after that. With Herschelle Gibbs yet to get
going in both the games so far, it may just be his turn to go out there and
try and score a big one. The batting line-up is good, but apart from these three,
the others will need to chip in with the 20s and 30s cameos to get them through
to a big total.
|
